Five Songs for Beca Mitchell
by landslide-state-of-mind
Summary: Chloe can map out how she fell in love with Beca Mitchell in five songs. (Obviously that whole Jeca thing never happened.)


_This is just a little something I knocked up when my iTunes was on shuffle after a late night viewing of Pitch Perfect. BeChloe is so on, it's insane. All Australian bands/artists (pretty sure this was my 'OzRepresent' playlist). _

* * *

**Heart's A Mess [Gotye]**

_Pick apart the pieces of your heart_

_Let me peer inside_

_Let me in, where only your thoughts have been_

_Let me occupy your mind as you do mine_

_You've lost (too much love)_

_to fear, doubt, and distrust (not enough)_

_You just threw away the key (to your heart)_

_You don't get burned ('cause nothing gets through)_

_It makes it easier (easier on you)_

_That much more difficult for me_

_To make you see_

_Your heart's a mess_

_You won't admit to it_

_It makes no sense_

_But I'm desperate to connect_

_And you can't live like this._

Chloe Beale was fascinated by Beca Mitchell the first time she met her. Even though she spent their entire first exchange bagging acapella singing groups extensively, she was curious about the freshman. There was something in her eyes that Chloe couldn't quite figure out, something she was either hiding or ignoring. Then she heard her sing, unguarded, just for a moment in the bathrooms. She could barely help herself, she had to know more about Beca.

The freshman balked, which in retrospect she understood given that she all but accosted her in the shower, but she finally coerced Beca into singing with her for just a moment. And even though it didn't take long for the walls to come back up, Chloe saw something in the stormy blue eyes. A flicker of something akin to joy. And yes, Tom had ruined the moment, but Chloe knew then that she and Beca were destined to be something. What, she didn't know. But something.

When Beca auditioned for the Bellas, she sang quietly and didn't look at the audience once. But the voice was gorgeous, and it was raw, and Chloe ached to hear it. It sounded like it was practiced in sorrow. She probably had no idea exactly how good it was. Aubrey was beside her, wrinkling her nose, but Chloe wanted her in the Bellas. She had to know what was going on inside that head. It took a two hour conversation with Aubrey to convince her that Beca was a Barden Bella, but she won in the end.

It didn't take any time at all for Chloe to become enamoured with Beca's attitude toward Aubrey. Whenever Aubrey went head to head with someone else, the other person always backed down. Not Beca. She'd stand toe to toe with Aubrey and pull up just short of Aubrey having a meltdown. The first time they hard an argument, Beca had insisted that Aubrey didn't know her. She was right, of course. Aubrey didn't know her, nobody did. Except maybe that Treblemaker, Jesse, but even that was debatable.

Beca Mitchell was very much a mystery. And it intrigued Chloe all the more.

So she tried, she did, to get to know Beca. But Beca would only go so far, and then the walls came up. She wouldn't let anybody in. Chloe went to see Jesse and learned that it wasn't just her, she shut everyone out, saying something about her father and Beca supposedly finding it easier to shut people out than let them in. That was something Chloe could understand. Her parents weren't exactly open people, but it only made Chloe the opposite. She'd tried the closed off route, but she couldn't handle it late at night when she wished she had someone, anyone who would listen. She realised that Beca Mitchell might have a tough exterior, but there was a good chance she was just scared, and probably lonely.

The only time the redhead ever saw her happy was when she was singing. It was like the walls came down and the floodgates opened. All the emotion she normally held back was let out, and the look on her face, the ecstasy... Chloe watched the way her eyes closed, head slightly tilted, smiling as she sang, and knew that the more she saw of Beca, the more she adored her.

**I'm In Here [Sia]**

_I'm in here, can anybody see me?_

_Can anbody help?_

_I'm in here, a prisoner of history_

_Can anybody help?_

_Can't you hear my call?_

_Are you coming to get me now?_

_I've been waiting for you to come rescue me_

_I need you to hold_

_All of the sadness I can not, living inside of me_

_I'm crying out, I'm breaking down_

_I am fearing it all, stuck inside these walls_

_Tell me there is hope for me_

_Is anybody out there listening?_

The night they won the ICCA championship was the night Beca Mitchell fell apart. She kissed Jesse, and not even an hour later regretted it, because she didn't love him like that. It was easier, she told Chloe, to let him think she loved him back than tell him the truth and lose him for good. Chloe didn't really want to talk about Jesse, but she was surprised the girl was talking about herself at all, so she went with it.

Beca hadn't even been drinking, but she rambled on and on. Jesse was important to her, as a friend, because he was the first person she ever really confided in, ever, and the one time she handled things badly, he bailed. So Beca couldn't tell him the truth, because she needed him, and it was stupid and selfish to pretend to love a boy for those reasons.

Chloe gently enquired as to what she was so afraid of, and Beca just lay her head down on the table. Chloe thought she'd hit the wall again, but Beca just kept talking, fingers tracing a pattern over and over on the wood. She confessed that she didn't do the confiding thing very often, if ever, or well, but that Chloe was one person she was going out on a limb for because she felt like they had a connection.

Chloe took one of the fidgeting hands and held it as Beca talked, and she unloaded on her. Her mother, her father, her friends. Having her dream shut down by everyone over and over. Refusing to let people come close because everyone who ever did either abandoned her or laughed at her. But, Beca confessed, she was tired, and she needed someone. And Jesse had wanted to be that someone, even though she didn't want him in the same way.

Chloe just squeezed the hand, stroked some stray hair from her face and spoke to her in a low voice. Her own confession was that she believed in Beca, in her dreams, and promised that as long as she was living, she would be there for her. And Beca believed her, because Chloe had never lied to her, and there was nowhere for an untruth to hide in those eyes.

Then Beca had said the phrase that made Chloe understand with great clarity why she was so cut up about not being in love with Jesse. 'Chloe, I'm gay. I can't love him like that.' Chloe just pulled her up off of the table, drew her in, and pressed a kiss to her temple. 'Beca, just tell him. He'll understand.' And it killed her to say that, because she knew that she was falling in love with her, and it was the worst possible time for anything like that.

**Under The Milky Way Tonight [The Church]**

_Sometimes when this place is kinda empty_

_The sound of breath fades with the light_

_I think about the loveless fascination_

_Under the Milky Way tonight_

_Wish I knew what you were looking for_

_Might have known what you would find_

_And it's something quite peculiar_

_Something shimmering and white_

_It leads you here, despite your destination_

_Under the Milky Way tonight_

After that night, Chloe and Beca were practically inseparable. Beca finally told Jesse the reason she couldn't love him back, and he was gracious and sweet, just as Chloe predicted. And she still hung out with Jesse, because they were nothing if not a pair of nerds and he was making good on his promise to educate her in film. She's more comfortable with Chloe, though, and Chloe found that the brunette would open up a little more every time they talked.

It wasn't long before graduation, after Chloe told Beca that she's only going to be an hour away at Carolina U, getting her postgrad degree, that Beca really thanked her for the first time. For taking a chance on a weird alternative freshman. For listening. For being the one who fought for her. Chloe just hugged her and reminded her that on hood night, she knew they were going to be fast friends. Beca smiled a weird kind of smile and hugged her back.

Two weeks before Chloe graduated, she invited Beca to come with her on a road trip over summer break. She felt like Beca needed an open road, an open schedule and absolutely no external pressures. She and Aubrey normally took the trip together, but Aubrey would be busy interning at a law firm and hadn't really warmed to Beca beyond their mutual love of performing. Beca accepted, and her father was excited that she's doing something like a normal girl for a change. Because even joining the Bellas was supposed to be normal, but it got her arrested, which he hadn't forgotten about.

Four days into the trip, they were sitting on the balcony of a restaurant overlooking the beach and Beca was staring out over the water. Chloe asked her what she was thinking about, and when she cryptically responded 'things yet to come' a million questions sprang to mind, but she was happy enough just to sit and speculate to herself what might be yet to come for her. And us, if such a thing were predestined. As she hoped.

They sat there and didn't really say much of anything else until the staff began vacuuming around them, a clear sign that they have overstayed their welcome. They paid for their dinner, and tip generously for the trouble, and wander back to their motel, where they've been sharing a bed. Chloe knew that when she woke up Beca would be curled into her side, it was a pattern after just these few days, and there was a little part of her that wanted to tell the freshman she may as well just start the night there. But instead she squeezed her hand, said goodnight, and rolled over, just in case the brunette turned to face her and saw her staring. Her eyes were open for most of the night.

**Summarize [Little Birdy]**

_Summarize what it means to be happy to you and all that's inside_

_Summarize and I will take time to find you_

_I am happy just lying here with you_

_I am happy just lying here next to you_

_Maybe, maybe I see you in my mind_

_Maybe I see you in time_

_Darling, I just need all of you_

_Darling, I just need a little_

_Kiss kiss, show me what you mean babe_

_Bang bang, show me and summarize this_

Eleven days after the restaurant they were dancing at a bar in Arizona. Beca had turned down the offered drinks, but Chloe had a few, maybe more. The dry, warm air enveloped them as Beca helped Chloe stumble into a cab and back to their hotel room, where the air conditioner was making the starchy sheets cold enough to cause actual goosebumps as the two of them undressed and slid in the bed.

Chloe had always been a chatty type of person, and drunk Chloe was worse. She rambled, and Beca was listening half-heartedly. Then she challenged Chloe to say something meaningful, because right now she was talking a lot but not saying a great deal. At first Chloe was a little offended, but she paused for a moment. Beca poured her heart out to her with regularity, and Chloe enjoyed being the one privy to all that information. But she'd never shared much of her own.

Chloe sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She looked down at the carpet and figured there would probably never be a more opportune moment than this to say something to Beca that would let her know exactly how she felt about her. She started to talk about happiness. It didn't go how she wanted it to, but she managed to say what she needed.

Chloe stated that despite the fact that she waltzed around daily with a smile on her face, there was nothing that made her happier than lying on this bed with Beca. In this exact moment, she was perfectly content. Beca turned to face her, a questioning look in her eyes. Chloe followed it up by saying that she thought about her all the time, and she needed to know why, because it felt a hell of a lot like love.

She moved to kiss Beca, but the brunette put a hand up to stop her. Her dark blue eyes were glassy with tears and she said that if she could remember what she just said in the morning, sober, and still thought it was true, she wouldn't stop her if she tried to kiss her again. Chloe nodded because she couldn't trust words right then, and the two of them lay there awkwardly, Beca trying not to cave in and kiss the redhead next to her, and Chloe trying desperately to convince her brain to remember what she just said.

**Even When I'm Sleeping [Leonardo's Bride]**

_Don't be confused by my apparent lack of ceremony_

My mind is clear

I may be low or miles high off in the distance

I want you near

I love you even when I'm sleeping

When I close my eyes

You're everywhere

No matter where the road is leading us remember

Don't be afraid

We have a continent that sometimes comes between us

That's okay

I love you even when I'm sleeping

When I close my eyes

You're everywhere

When Chloe woke the next morning her head was pounding and her mouth was bone dry. Beca was in the shower, she assumed, since the water was running and the brunette wasn't beside her. She sat up with a start and remembered two things. One, she'd drunk a lot last night. Two, she told Beca she loved her. That wasn't a small thing. She heard Beca begin to sing in the shower, and figured she had about four minutes to come up with a plan to prove that it wasn't just drunk Chloe talking.

She pulled open the drawer in the tiny hotel desk and pulled out the complimentary notepad and pen. On the front page she wrote 'I remember drinking way too much last night. And that I said a lot of things that I've been to scared to say for a long time. I'm not my most eloquent when I'm drunk, so let me try again.' Then she drew an arrow to the next page and started scribbling other things that she remembered about Beca.

The shower shut off, so Chloe finished her final thought and left the pad on top of Beca's laptop bag. She insisted on bringing it everywhere, in case inspiration struck. Then she grabbed a bottle of water from the minifridge and sat back on the bed. The brunette came out in a scratchy hotel robe, and toweling her hair dry. She saw the notepad on top of her stuff and read the front page. Chloe saw her back tense up, a sign she recognised as the walls coming up. But she turned the page anyway, and soon the shoulders unhunched and Chloe could see Beca relax as she read it. When she was done she turned around. Chloe had never been more nervous in her life.

Beca asked her if she saw this coming. Chloe shook her head, nobody could have possibly predicted that she would fall in love with a closed off, confused and musically brilliant freshman. But Chloe said that she couldn't turn it off, even if she wanted to, and she had because she didn't want Beca to think she was exploiting all of her fears. She'd fallen in love with her on accident. Beca smiled, and Chloe saw it reached her eyes. She asked shyly if she really was in love with her.

Chloe said again that she wasn't always very eloquent, but that she did, in fact, love Beca very much whether drunk or sober, hell she even loved her while she was asleep. Beca put the notepad down and purposefully strode across the room and kissed Chloe with all she had. Then she laughed and said that from the first moment she met her, she loved her, only she was to afraid to say it out loud. Chloe could barely believe it, so she kissed Beca this time, just to make sure she was awake and not dreaming. And she wasn't.


End file.
